Anchor Line (39 page)

 
                 "I heard they already were." Keith looked at his son with an arched eyebrow.

 
                 Conrad scratched his neck as Carrie looked at him with daggers in her eyes.

 
                 "Yeah...you mentioned...." Addie started, but Conrad cut her off.

 
                 "Geez. April Maganussum was rubbing all over me and wouldn't leave me alone." Conrad looked at the line of the nearest bar as he moved his hand from his neck to his temple. "So, I might have said that I was looking for my wife who was being macked on by Kern Whitman in a cozy little area in the hotel lobby."

 
                 And with that, Conrad walked away from Carrie, Addie and his Pop in search of a rum and coke.

 
                 "Well, welcome to the family Addie." Keith said extending his hand to Addie who let go of Carrie to take it.

 
                 "Thank you Sir. But that wasn't a formal proposal, I can assure you of that." Addie laughed.

 
                 "Give him time. You're the first girl he's brought to actually meet the family." He answered.

 
                 Addie's eyebrows shot up as she looked over at Conrad who was standing at the bar downing a rum and coke and put his glass down and ordered another. She smirked at him. Great, he was working on his way to really being drunk. Did he need to get drunk to be with her? Maybe she'd ask him when he came back over. If he came back over.

 
                 "Don't worry. He's just nervous." Carrie answered, making Addie think she'd said something out loud.

 
                 "I'm not. He has girls in Italy that are falling all over him for his attention. As long as I'm on a different continent, they have no competition." Addie smiled. "But I have realized that I'm hogging the bride and you need to go mingle."

 
                    "Trust me, I’m done mingling." Carrie gave a reassuring smile. "Most of these two hundred and forty eight people are friends and family of Roger. So, trust me. I'm fine."

             
The dinner bell rang and Addie turned around and sat down in front of the card that had her name on it. Jeff sat to her left and to her right was Conrad’s seat. Looking around, she saw that he was cornered again by April. Sighing, she went to get up when Jeff put his hand on her arm and said he’d take care of it. A few moments later, a very inebriated Conrad sat in his chair next to Addie and leaned over  as he slid one hand in her hair, he tilted her how he wanted her and kissed her deeply for several seconds. When they parted, Addie was beet red and her eyes were wide with shock.

             
“Was that for my benefit or for April’s?” Addie looked at Conrad, who took a sip of his new drink.

             
“That was all yours baby.” Conrad said smiling at her with a goofy grin.

             
“How many of those have you had?” Addie pointed to his glass.

             
“Shit, who cares?” Conrad laughed a salad was placed in front of him.

             
Dinner was a relatively quiet event. Jeff was sitting next to his father, on the other side of Conrad was his brother in law, at the round table. Addie asked Carrie why they elected to have round tables instead of a long table for the wedding party, she said she liked small and intimate. Roger Sewell seemed the polar opposite of the small Renner clan. Very blonde, skinny and very reserved, unless it came to his family.

             
Conrad would lean over and tell Addie about his deployments and sometimes he’d slide his hand under the table to caress her thigh. As their backs were to the windows, no one would notice. He’d ask if she was still wet, and when she would just nod, he’d smile brightly at her.

             
The bridal dance went off without a hitch as did the cutting of the cake. Conrad asked Addie to dance with him. So, she got up as he took her hand and spun her around once on the dance floor before he pulled her to him and swayed to the small band that was set up. Neither recognized the tune playing, but it was a slow mellow beat, just like they wanted.

             
“You’re my anchor line Addie.” Conrad softly whispered in her ear.

             
“What is that?” Addie asked.

             
“I’ll let you look it up to see what it means. You’ll understand then.” Was all he would say.

             
After another song started, Conrad leaned down to her ear again. “Did you like it when I told April and Kern on the cob that you were my wife?”

             
“Honestly?” Addie looked up at him.

             
He nodded.

             
“It kind of pissed me off why you did it.” The look on Conrad’s face was shock. She knew she had to soften the blow. “But if having hot closet sex is what I get out of being your wife, i’ll take it any day of the week.” She smiled.

             
That seemed to have improved Conrad’s mood, because he pulled her closer to him and kissed the top of her head and kept dancing. The after party went well into the two o’clock hour and Addie had decided that she needed to pour Conrad into bed. He’d had at least ten of those rum and coke things and there were shots with his brother and sister. He’d had at least one beer with his dad. His uniform jacket taken off hours ago with his tie, his sleeves rolled up to his elbows, he was sitting there swaying back and forth.

             
She’d spied Jeff on the dance floor and motioned that she was taking Conrad up to the room, so Jeff waived and mouthed that he’d see her tomorrow for breakfast. Then she was in search of Carrie who had somehow stolen the photographer’s camera and was going around taking pictures of the guests. When she Carrie saw Addie wave, she walked over and demanded a picture of Addie and Conrad for the wedding album.

             
“He’s so drunk Carrie. I don’t want to take advantage.” Addie pleaded as Carrie took her hand and led her over to where Conrad was swaying in the chair.

             
“He’ll be okay. This is for me anyway.” Carrie smiled. “Now stand behind him and smile.”

             
Before Addie could move, Conrad grabbed her and pulled her onto his lap. “Sit with me.” Then he looked at Carrie and smiled. Except for his glassy eyes, you’d think he was sober with that heart stopping smile.

             
Addie tried to get up, but Conrad insisted another picture be taken. Ten minutes later, Addie was standing next to Carrie looking at the digital images of her and Conrad. One in his lap smiling, then kissing. One with his jacket on, at his insistence, He’d straightened his sleeves and put his tie and jacket on and had Addie stand in front of the windows. There were about twenty five different pictures. He’d taken her to the dance floor and dipped her and Carrie was there for all of them. But the last one was the best. The photographer came over and got a picture of Keith, Carrie and Roger, Jeff, and Conrad and Addie. Nothing super special. Except that Conrad couldn’t keep his eyes off Addie. In the last picture, they were looking at each other, Conrad had his arms armband her from behind, she was holding onto his wrists. It was beautiful.

             
“I’ll send them to you.” Carrie assured Addie. “See you guys in the morning for brunch.”

             
“Will do.” Addie smiled as she hugged Carrie, then Keith and Jeff.

             
“To bed!” Conrad announced loudly to the remaining guests on the dance floor. “I’m going to take my anchor line to bed.”

             
“I think you mean ball and chain.” One guy yelled.

             
“Nope.” Conrad said emphatically, closing his eyes briefly. “I mean anchor line.”

             
There was a round of laughter as they excited the ballroom and hit the elevators up to the tenth floor and finally to their room. Once inside, Addie was lucky that Conrad helped get his uniform off, because once he was horizontal on the bed, he was out like a light.

Chapter Twenty-Seven

              Addie went to shower after hanging up Conrad’s uniform and her dress in the closet. Wrapped in a towel, her hair pulled back into a loose braid, she slid the chair closer to the window to look out and take in the city at night. She reflected the day and had smiled when Conrad had gotten jealous that she was sitting with Kern Whitman. The guy was nice enough, but she was being polite and really didn’t want to be left by her date, so she engaged in conversation with him.

 
           Conrad’s admission that he’d had sex before he deployed didn’t surprise her either. Was she disappointed, yes, but was she surprised? Not at all. The fact that he’d called out her name and not Lisa’s made her feel warm and fuzzy too. She did fall in love with Conrad’s family though. His brother and sister were funny and outgoing. His father was very supportive of his children and had done a great job of raising his kids without a wife.

 
           It was as she was running through the conversations that she remembered to look up what Conrad had called her. His anchor line. Grabbing her phone from her clutch, she bypassed the text messages to go to the mobile internet and look up what an anchor line was after finding a training manual for airborne school. It didn’t give a definition per se, but she did come across something.

Anchor line: A stable line attached to the aircraft to which you attach your static line
to, before jumping out of the aircraft.

 
           She smiled knowing that she could totally be a stable line in which to jump from. Looking through her text messages now, she gasped when she got a message from Jess with a picture that she had attached. Carl had asked her to marry him and he gave her a huge diamond ring. Addie texted back congratulations and that she wanted details when she got home. Flipping through, a few texts from her brother about her being in town and doing lunch and other texts from people that she hadn’t heard from in a while about getting together while she was in town.

 
           Conrad’s mumbling caught her attention. Plugging her charger into the phone, she closed the curtains and pulled the towel from around her and slid into bed. Now under the covers, Conrad turned over and immediately reached out for her, pulling her up against his body as he kissed the top of her head.

 
           “My anchor line.” He nuzzled her neck. “Did you look it up?” He asked sleepily.

 
           “Yes.” She answered.

 
           “Give me time Addie.” He kissed her where her neck and shoulder met. “I want you. I just need time.”      

 
            Addie knew he’d fallen back asleep after he told her that he wanted her. But her nagging fear was that he wouldn’t remember this. Yet she remembered something her grandmother always said. ‘Words of the drunken man are the words a sober man can never say.’ She’d told Addie that so many times. She certainly hoped so.

 
           As it happened, the next morning, Addie had gone down to breakfast with a very hung-over Conrad and when they sat at the table, she saw that most of the bridal party was in the same state. Jeff hadn’t even come down from his room yet. If Conrad remembered anything after she slid into bed, he didn’t mention it. He didn’t treat her any different. He was always the sarcastic man she knew him to be. He’d hold her hand kiss her often and tease her with his words. Always asking if she was wet because he would rub his cock against her every chance he got. They’d gone to a ballgame that night with Carrie and Roger and Jeff and Pop. Upon entering the hotel room, Conrad had stripped her down and couldn’t wait to be inside of her again, so he fucked her up against the wall by the front door with their clothes still on. Then they’d had sex in the shower with her legs wrapped around him, pressed against the wall in the shower and once more in the wee hours of the morning.

 
           After ten days with Conrad, Addie now stood in the airport before the security gates with her arms around Conrad. He’d taken her to see her parents and had lunch before he took her to the airport. They wished Conrad well as his leave was coming to an end in a few more days and he’d be going back to Afghanistan. Her mother embraced him and told him to not be a stranger, her father who was ever the Sergeant Major, told him the soldierly things and shook his hand saying he looked forward to seeing him again.

 
           “Well, I guess I’d better scoot.” Addie gave a tightlipped smile looking up at Conrad. “I leave in thirty minutes.”

 
           “Yep.”

 
           “So, enjoy the few days you have left with your family and uh…fly safe and all that jazz.”

 
           “Will do.”

 
           When Addie went to pull away, Conrad didn’t let her go. His grip tightened on her waist. She wiggled a little closer and his hold tightened further, so she laid her head on his chest and listened to the beat of his heart for a few more minutes.